Collected Stories (42 page)

Jenkins got up and wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket. “Thirty years, I think. Her decline was gradual, but I have not detected a heart beat for at least twenty years. But I never really admitted that, sir. I couldn’t.”

I left Bramfield Manor and made my way towards the main gates without so much as a backward glance. I did not pay a visit to the inquisitive post mistress, but caught the first train to town. I told Frazer the truth: Caroline Fortescue had been dead for years and there was no story worth writing.

A week later Bramfield Manor burnt to the ground. Whether this was the result of an accident, or Jenkins had decided to turn the house into one vast pyre, including himself as a funerary sacrifice, is a matter for interesting conjecture. Certainly two charred skeletons were laid side by side in Bramfield churchyard.

I sometimes wonder if Jenkins would have considered this arrangement disrespectful.

(1987) 

Since you insist on my telling all—as the saying goes—I’ll start from the beginning. Yes, I think that’s best. Someone should know what’s going on, even if I can’t believe half of it myself. But I’ve got to, seeing as how most of what I’m going to tell you happened to me. Me, Laura Benfield, who at thirty-seven years and three months, lived quite comfortably on a small income my mother had left me, together with the house.

Then I did a part-time job, nothing strenuous you understand, for I’m not all that strong, just addressing envelopes for a mail-order firm three days a week. Then that bastard Michel Adler came into my life and lit a bomb under me.

What? No, I don’t mean literally. For God’s sake! But it would have been kinder if he had. Handsome bastard he was. Looked like Errol Flynn in Captain Blood that I saw on telly twice. And charm! He could bring the birds down from the trees and worms out of the ground and get ‘em to play hop-scotch together.

I met him at the Byfleet Social Club when I was sweating on a full house at bingo. I was just one number missing—legs eleven it was, but of course with my luck a cow from Tyburn Avenue got it. Not legs eleven, but five and three, fifty-three, which filled her house for her.

Then I hears this voice, all soft and gentlemanly like, say:

“Damn bad luck, old dear,” and turning I sees him for the first time.

You know I went right weak at the knees, there and then, me who normally would never talk to a strange man. He had grey eyes, the sort that sort of twinkle and seem to be full of mischief. Know what I mean?

Well, not to make mincemeat out of a cold sausage, when he suggested we have coffee in the club room, I accepted like a shot and made sure Maud Perkins saw me hanging on to the arm of this sexpot, although when we were seated side by side near a ruddy great mirror that some sadistic bastard had stuck on the wall so that it took in the entire room, I began to ask myself where the catch was.

I mean, every woman there from sixteen to eighty was giving him the what-about-it-sign and I—let’s be honest—had nothing bedwise to offer. There again they do say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so I thought maybe my eye was missing out on some of my beauty. Any road that was the only explanation I could think of, for boy, did he give me the treatment.

After pouring coffee down me, he suggests dinner in some quiet restaurant wouldn’t be out of place, he having not eaten since breakfast, due to being run off his feet by business commitments. It seemed that he had popped in the bingo club to unwind, for hearing numbers shouted out over a loud speaker had a relaxing effect on him. He also said it was the play of my features that directed his attention to me, suggesting as they did I had a beautiful soul, which was reflected in my eyes.

No one has ever talked to me like that before and although you may think I’m a silly ‘apporth to be taken in by stuff like that, just you remember that in every plain, dull woman, there’s a beautiful, interesting one trying to get out. And he knew how to order a good dinner and wines with names I couldn’t even pronounce, and when he left the waiter two pounds as a tip, I thought he must really be on the top shelf spondulicks-wise.

Then he took me home and I felt awful about inviting him in, for the place hasn’t seen a decorator’s brush since my mum died and truth to tell, I’m no great dab at housework. But he—Michel—only laughed and said the house had character and personally he had no time for your spotless and everything in its place living unit, where it was impossible for anyone to feel comfortable.

Well, I had nothing in the house in the booze line, except for a few bottles of brown ale and I couldn’t offer him that after all the wine and liqueurs he’d lashed out for on me. But he said he’d just as soon have a cup of tea, which he made, after telling me to sit down and put me feet up.

Then we talked. Even now, I have to admit that man had a wonderful brain. He told me all about the stars and how this world is only one among millions of suns and things and there must be billions of civilizations and one day clever, but funny-looking creatures will either visit us or we’ll visit them and...

Sorry. I didn’t mean to break down like that, but when I think how things could have been if he hadn’t turned out to be a crook, me heart’s fit to break.

Anyway he came to see me quite often and took me out once or twice a week, always somewhere swanky, but there was one thing I thought was strange. After he’d paid the bill, he entered the amount in a little black book. He said it was so he could claim it back against tax, which didn’t sound right, for a friend once told me that you can only get tax rebate for entertaining foreign buyers, but I didn’t say anything, just supposed he knew his business best.

Then he got to talking about money, saying that lots of people did not realize they were sitting on thousands, until the matter was brought to their attention.

“Let’s take your case, Laura,” he said, “that house of yours, you could raise forty thousand quid on it any day. Invested by someone who knows his business, you could double it within six months, pay back the mortgage and use the extra thirty thou for further investments. That kind of thinking has laid the basis of many a fortune. I know—that’s the way I started out.”

Honestly it sounded right, particularly the way he put it, and when I said I wouldn’t like to mortgage my mum’s house, he said fair enough, he was only talking about what could be done, but God forbid he should influence me in any way. But if I should ever consider the idea, he’d be pleased to help me.

The seed had fallen on fertile ground, if you get my meaning. All of us could do with some more money, and the very thought of having thirty thousand nicely invested made me feel good. So one day I said I’d like to investigate the possibilities a little further—and that was it.

He cleaned me out in three weeks. He did all the paperwork—all I had to do was sign, the milkman witnessing my signature. First the mortgage on the house, then liquidating my little investments, for Michel said they were only chicken feed and he’d do much better for me. He explained for tax reasons all the money would be paid into a bank account under his name...

Thank you for the handkerchief, sir, these little lace things he brought me are no good when you shed buckets as I’ve been doing over the past few months.

What? Of course... well I had to get myself a proper job, didn’t I? I mean I was down on my uppers. The house gone, me in a shabby bed-sit and not a penny coming in. I got taken on by a local store, but I wasn’t really fitted for it. Me ankles swelled up with all that standing and when the customers got nasty, I answered back, which didn’t please their mightinesses on the sixth floor, so I was soon out on my ear.

Then I read this advertisement. See? I’ve got the newspaper cutting here:

COOK HOUSEKEEPER required by single gentleman. Live-in all found. Salary by negotiation. Ring Mr Rudolph Acrudal 753. 9076.

As I’ve said I’m not all that good at housekeeping, but I’m not all that bad at cooking, so long as no one expects anything fancy. And with a single gentleman there’s no woman to find fault—so why not?

The voice that answered the phone sounded genteel, which reassured me, for I find educated gentry are more easily pleased than your jumped-up-come-by-nights, and it was agreed I should come round right away, so I gave Mr Acrudal (pronounced Ac-ru-dal. I must say it took a bit of getting used to) my name and hired a taxi, for it’s just as well to give the impression that you’re not hard-up when applying for a job, and got myself driven to the address the gentleman had given me over the phone.

An old Victorian terrace house it was, four storeys high including the basement, with a flight of cracked grey steps leading up to the front door. The place didn’t look so much run down as neglected, and I could imagine an old bachelor who just couldn’t be bothered to have it done up.

He answered the door—Mr Rudolph Acrudal—a tall lean man who could have been any age. Honestly, I couldn’t make up my mind if he was a worn-out thirty, or a young seventy. He had a mass of black hair sort of sprinkled with white, as though he had been painting the ceiling and splashed white paint over his hair.

High cheekbones and a hooked nose and two long eye-teeth that dimpled his lower lip, which I might as well say were black. The lips I mean. His ears tapered to a sharp point at the top, making him — what with sunken black eyes—look like those old prints of the devil. He wore a tight-fitting black suit that included stove-pipe trousers. True. I swear on oath. He jerked his head back and forth several times and then said in a rusty kind of voice:

“Miss Benfield—yes? Good. Come in—don’t just stand there. The sun may come out at any time and that won’t be good for my health.” And he all but pulled me into a hall that stunk of damp and what could have been burnt fat, and where every floorboard creaked when you took a step forward, to say nothing of the odd flake of plaster that floated down from the ceiling, particularly when Mr Acrudal slammed the front door.

He led the way into a front room that looked even worse than the hall, being mostly dominated by a giant old desk and a mixture of books and papers that lay everywhere. Honestly I thought for a moment it was the dumping area for Let’s-have-all-your-old-books-and-newspapers-week. But he upended one wooden armchair, so that everything on it—including a huge tom cat—slid on to the floor. He half sat on the desk and gave me the doings.

“My wants are simple. Breakfast—black pudding on toast. Lunch—pig’s blood mixed with lightly done mince. Dinner—the same. Nightcap—a glass of pig’s blood.” He looked at me intently. “How does that strike you?”

I spoke boldly—it always pays in the long run: “Well, sir, it wouldn’t suit me, but if that’s what you want—I’ll try to make it as tasty as possible.”

He jerked his head up and down and I could swear he was dribbling as though the very thought of his favourite diet had started his mouth watering. “Good. The last housekeeper I had, heaved up when she saw me shovelling in the mince and blood. That’s settled then. You have a free hand. Make sure I’m fed and moistened three to four times a day and you can do what you like.”

I said, “Thank you, sir. I can see there’s plenty to do. And where will my quarters be?”

“Wherever you care to make them. Plenty of empty rooms on all floors. I use this one and the one next door. No need for you to go in there. As for money...”

“I was about to mention that, sir.”

He bent down and brought forth a large old carpet-bag from beside the desk, which he dropped in my lap. When I opened it I found wads of bank notes—fifty pounds, tens and fivers. Mr Acrudal waved a dirt-grimed hand.

“Pay yourself a hundred a week, then take whatever is needed for housekeeping.”

I shook my head firmly. “That won’t do at all, sir. We won’t know where we are. I’d like you to keep this bag somewhere safe and pay me whatever is required each week.”

His face—white as a pig’s belly—took on a real bad-tempered expression and I thought to myself: I wouldn’t like to cross you, me lord, that I wouldn’t. For now, his face from dead-white turned to a light grey. Very off-putting it was. Never seen anything like it before. Then he kind of spluttered out words it took me some time to understand.

“Don’t... ar... r... g... u... e with... me... m.... m... e w...o...m...m...a...n...D...o...o...o...a...s...I... say.”

He scared the wits out of me and I was about to give him a piece of my mind and then walking out, when I remembered the cold bed-sit and the two quid and small change in my handbag, so I nodded like, an idiot and said: “All right, sir... calm down. I’ll make a note of all the money I take and let you have a statement once a week.”

He did calm down, but appeared to be tired out as though the outburst had drained him.

I got out of the room as fast as my legs would take me and after I had cooled down a bit, began to explore the house. The kitchen I found in the basement, if the grease-lined hell-hole could be identified in any way as a place for preparing food. Do you know there was an old rusty iron range that heated an antiquated boiler with a tap on one side. A plain deal table collapsed when I tried to move it. Damp rot had done its worst to the floorboards and I almost broke an ankle when my foot sank into rotting wood. I made up my mind then and there—the kitchen was a write-off.